Merciless Monsters 2: Bloody Avenger (Bloody Mary)

I recently became rather intrigued by Bloody Mary folklore. I've always been a fan of undead creatures. In particular, I'm fascinated to learn about the reality of humanity's fear of the dead. Pop culture is so inundated with movie monsters these days that it's easy to know everything about zombies of vampires without ever learning the reality which inspired the fantasy. In fact, it was the trailer for the movie "Paranormal Activity 3" which first got me interested in this folklore. I find it hilarious that a movie trailer failed to convince me to see the movie, but succeeded in motivating me to do some reading. Even if it was just Wikipedia, and a handful of other websites.

Each of us is a student of popular culture, whether or not we realize it. But there's so much more to these creatures. Historical information, which filmmakers never passed down to us. Did you know that while Catholics in Western Europe took a slowly-decomposing corpse as a sign of sainthood; Catholics in Eastern Europe took it as a sign that the corpse was waking at night as a vampire? It's true. Likewise, Zombies originate from Afro-Haitian superstitions, where "sorcerers" would use psychoactive chemicals to place a victim in a highly suggestible state, then order that victim to do their bidding.

Interesting stuff.

Hoping to find some similarly interesting revelations for Bloody Mary, I did some looking around. I haven't found a ton of solid information on the tale's origins--it seems to be a relatively recent, and particularly fractured piece of folklore. However, the sheer volume of completely different accounts of this mirror-dwelling creature make it a curiosity to me. And as I looked for additional sources of information, I began to wonder if Mary had ever been converted into a monster for gaming. I flipped through the various incorporeal undead in my Bestiaries and Monster Manuals, but didn't find anything which seemed specifically based on her. Since I find the folklore so fascinating, I thought I'd go ahead and create my own.

As an aside, in my study of Bloody Mary, I learned a word which should be very useful to game masters and world crafters. Catoptromancy; Divination by use of mirrors, or other reflective surfaces.

Bloody Avenger

At first all that can be seen is the dripping blood, falling apparently from thin air. Once one looks upon vengeful specter's crimson form, the black pits of its eyes widen, and it gurgles a curse from a blood filled mouth.

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Bloody Avenger; CR 10; [Undead(Incorporeal)] [Urban] [Any Climate] [Nocturnal]

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XP: 6,400
CE Medium Undead
Init +7; Senses darkvision 60ft; Perception +12

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DEFENSE

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AC 18, touch 18, flat-footed 14 [10 + Dex(3) + Dodge(1) + Incorporeal Deflection(4)]
HP 90 (9d8 + 45)
Fast Healing 2
Fort +3 Ref +6 Will +12
Defensive Abilities Incorporeal
Immunities Undead Traits

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OFFENSE

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Speed fly 30 ft. (Perfect)
Melee Lacerate Face + 14 (4d6 + 4)
Special Attacks Death's Gaze, Share Guilt, Expose Guilt, Bloody Chains

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STATISTICS

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Str -- Dex 16 Con -- Int 6 Wis 15 Cha 18
Base Attack +6/1 CMB +9 CMD 19
Feats Improved Initiative, Dodge, Ability Focus(Death's Gaze), Iron Will, Toughness, Natural Weapon Focus (Lacerate Face)
Skills Fly (+12), Intimidation (+21), Perception (+12), Stealth (+20)
Languages Common

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ECOLOGY

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Environment Most commonly in urban homes, but they can strike wherever a mirror is nearby.
Organization Solitary
Activity Cycle Primarily nocturnal, but do not tire, and can function wherever there is low light.
Treasure Standard

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SPECIAL ABILITIES

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Invisibility(Sp) A bloody avenger may cast Invisibility (as the spell) at will.

Catoptromancy(Su) A bloody avenger can enter any mirror, and exit through any other mirror on the same plane. Broken mirrors do not affect the creature's ability to travel through them, however, a mirror covered with a cloth cannot be traveled through. The creature can do this while invisible. Note that this ability works only for mirrors, surfaces which are incidentally reflective cannot be used for this, or any other mirror-related ability of the Bloody Avenger.

Lacerate Face(Ex) Bloody Avengers are compelled to destroy their victim's faces. It is not entirely clear why they do this, but it is surmised that it is based on the creature's intense feelings of guilt, and a desire to destroy its own identity. This is a melee touch attack which deals damage equal to 1d6/2 hit dice. A Bloody Avenger's charisma modifier is considered a weapon bonus for the purposes of this attack, and can be added both to the attack and the damage roll.

Death's Gaze(Su) 3 times per day, as a standard action, a Bloody Avenger may show a target opponent their own death. This is the death which they are currently fated for, though their fate is not immutable. However, the individual who sees this image of their death will know, inherently, that it is not an illusion. The fear this causes is profound. The target becomes immediately Panicked, but is entitled to a will saving throw [DC 20 (10 + 1/2 HD + Cha + Ability Focus)] to be only shaken. Targets can repeat the will save on each turn until they succeed. The Shaken condition lasts 3 rounds. In order to be affected by this attack, the target must look either at the Bloody Avenger, or at any mirrors.

Share Guilt(Su) Once per day a Bloody Avenger may pass through a target creature by moving through a square which that creature occupies. The target is entitled to a reflex saving throw [DC 17 (10 + 1/2 HD + Cha)] to take an immediate 5-foot step out of the way. If the Bloody Avenger successfully passes through the target, then for the next 24 hours, any damage inflicted on the Bloody Avenger will be inflicted on that target. This effect is treated as a curse, and any ability which removes curses will end this effect.

Expose Guilt(Su) Once per day, a Bloody Avenger can select a target. As a standard action, the Bloody Avenger shares the target's greatest unknown sin to all of that target's allies within 60ft. Any moral boosting effects which that character granted to his companions ceases to function, and all opponents within 10ft of the character take a -1 penalty to all rolls. This effect lasts for 24 hours.

Bloody Chains(Su) Once per day, a Bloody Avenger can cause four blood-soaked barbed chains to emerge from any mirror within 60 feet, and grapple with a target. The chains are treated as having the Grab ability, so they do not provoke an attack of opportunity when they attempt to grapple. The chains have an effective CMB of +14, and can extend a maximum of 30ft from the mirror. The chains immediately begin attempting to draw a grappled target into the mirror (requiring a successful grapple check each round to move the target at half of the chain's speed of 30). Each of the 4 chains has hardness 10, hp 5, and a break DC of 26. Each chain destroyed reduces the chain's overall CMB by 2.

If the chains successfully move a target to a space adjacent to the mirror which they came out of, then on their next turn they may attempt a final grapple check to pull their target into the mirror. (This is considered a hazardous location, granting the target a +4 on their grapple attempt). If the target is successfully drawn into the mirror, then they fall out of another mirror somewhere on the same plane. This mirror could be elsewhere in town, in another nation, or even on another continent.

Death Rattle(Su) Upon its destruction, a Bloody Avenger lets out a piercing wail of anguish. Characters within a 60ft radius of the destroyed Bloody Avenger, who are not wearing protective ear coverings, take 10d6 sonic damage from this wail.

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SPECIAL WEAKNESSES

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Distraction All Bloody Avengers are created from a death which resulted from the death of someone else--whether or not they are guilty of it. They are fixated on that event, and seek indiscriminate revenge for it. However, if they are presented with someone who reminds them of whomever's death caused their own, the Bloody Avenger may become distracted. For example, a mother who went mad and died after the passing of her child may, as a Bloody Avenger, become distracted by a young child, believing it to be her own for as long as her distraction is not interrupted.

Summoning If an adventurer looks into a mirror and speaks the true name of a Bloody Avenger three times, then confesses to causing the death for which the Bloody Avenger is seeking vengeance, then the Bloody Avenger is immediately transported to that mirror.

Forced Medium Bloody Avengers can be used to discover secrets which may otherwise be impossible to discern. Once one is encountered or summoned, the party or individual who encounter it must not meet the Bloody Avengers eyes, nor harm it at all. For 1 minute (10 rounds) the Bloody Avenger will attack the party normally, however, unless the party meets the creature's eyes or attacks it in return, it cannot use lethal force. After a minute has passed, the Bloody Avenger can no longer attack the party. The party can, at this point, ask to speak with a specific dead person. They need not know the person's name, but must know something about them. "The person who designed the ruins of Aomur," or "The little boy who was killed by Joey Grills four years ago" would be sufficient. The Bloody Avenger will then retrieve the soul of this person with unerring accuracy, assuming they are dead, their souls still exist, and the phrasing of the question did not specifically exclude the intended person (Such as if Joey Grills killed a girl).

The soul is then compelled to answer any questions the party has for it. This bypasses any of the normal restrictions on the Speak with Dead spell. Three conditions cause this effect to end: 1) if the party meets the eyes of, or attacks, the Bloody Avenger, then the dead spirit disappears, and the party must combat the Bloody Avenger normally. 2) If the party tells the spirit it can go, then the Bloody Avenger will also excuse itself by exiting through the nearest mirror. If the mirror has been covered, the Bloody Avenger will attack the party. 3) after 10 minutes, the Bloody Avenger is released from its compulsion, and will release the spirit and attack the party.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

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Background A Bloody Avenger is a very particular manner of ghost. In life, the creatures who eventually become Bloody Avengers all suffer greatly from the horrible death, or loss, of someone dear to them. Such as a mother whose child goes missing, a man whose mother is murdered, or a child who watches another child fall down a well. The exact manner of the loss is irrelevant, so long as the person feels guilt over the loss. It matters not if the person in question is actually responsible in any degree for the loss, so long as they feel guilt over it.

That guilt must then drive the person to their own death, or dominate the rest of their life. To use the above examples, if the mother who lost her child went mad, and eventually committed suicide, that would qualify. If the man mentioned above had murdered his mother himself; and was then tried and executed for the crime, that would qualify. Even if he denied his guilt, it is likely that he still felt that guilt on some level. Lastly, if the young child lives a long life, yet is always haunted by feelings of guilt for the other child's death, then even dying of old age would not save him or her from qualifying. Any of these people might potentially rise as Bloody Avengers.

Bloody Avengers remember very little of their lives. They wander, only half aware of the world around them, while the other half of their attention is constantly reliving the moment which caused their guilt. This leaves them angry and violent, and poised to attack anyone who disturbs them.

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REFERENCE

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• The Undead Type is described on page 309 of the Pathfinder Bestiary.
• The Incorporeal Subtype is described on page 312 of the Pathfinder Bestiary.
• The Incorporeal Trait is described on page 301 of the Pathfinder Bestiary.
• Information on the Bloody Mary legend drawn from the Wikipedia entry, and the Snopes.com entry (oddly enough. Do ghost stories really need to be verified?)
• Images for this post taken from a remarkable fan-video for the Lady Gaga song "Bloody Mary"

Reality is my Sourcebook: The Phylactery

I learned something the other day.

The concept of a lich's phylactery is taken from Judaic mysticism. In reality, phylacteries were a complex kind of 'magic underwear' which were apparently quite common in Jewish communities at one time. Jewish Encyclopedia.com has an absolutely fascinating article on the subject, written in the early 20th century. There's an impressive amount of detail there, much of which I think I would need to know a lot more about Jewish tradition to fully understand. But enough of the article is written in plain English for me to learn a lot about the beliefs surrounding this tradition.

As I mentioned in my post titled Succubi Deserve More, I like to explore the mythology behind fantasy tropes. Not only does it result in me becoming a more educated and historically aware person, but the real-world mythology always offers fascinating insight into the fantastic possibilities. Whoever first decides to take some cultural or mythological element and include it in a fantasy story takes what works for them, and leaves the rest. That's how fantasy writing works. But who is to say that the elements they left behind aren't sometimes just as interesting as the elements they chose to keep?

For clarity's sake, lets start with the explanation of what a phylactery is in Pathfinder, pulled from The Pathfinder Bestiary, page 188. For those curious, this excerpt is functionally identical to the same excerpt in the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Monster Manual.

An integral part of becoming a lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the character stores his soul. The only way to get rid of a lich for sure is to destroy its phylactery. Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, a lich can rejuvenate after it is killed. (See Creating a Lich, below).

Each lich must create its own phylactery by using the Craft Wondrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher. The phylactery costs 120,000 gp to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation.

The most common form of phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. The box is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40.

Other forms of phylacteries can exist, such as rings, amulets, or similar items.

Not a lot to go on, really. I also seem to recall very distinctly that the process of becoming a lich (and so, presumably, creating the phylactery) is supposed to be profoundly evil. To my knowledge, that is the sum of official material on what a phylactery is within the game world. There are probably a few dragon magazine articles, and sourcebooks from the 70s and 80s which contain further tidbits of "official" information, but for now the basic definition will do.

Before moving any further, I would like to again remind my readers that I am not a credible source on the topic of Judaic history and lore. The sources for this post, which have far more information on this topic, are the Jewish Encyclopedia.com article on Phylacteries, and the Skeptic's Annotated Bible.

The historical phylactery, by comparison, was considered a very holy thing. In fact, if you look at the word's etymology, the Greek root words suggest that it was intended to protect the wearer from evil. The Jewish custom is based on a number of passages in the Torah, most notably this excerpt from Deuteronomy:

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on they gates.

The 'words' this passage wants the reader to spend so much time talking about are, as best I can determine, God's laws. Variations of this passage show up in a number of places, since repetition is an essential element in an oral tradition. The important part, though, is the bit I emphasized. That's the origin of the historical phylactery. The exact means of how these devices were worn is somewhat unclear to me. The image at the start of the post demonstrates how complicated they appear to be--and every element was important. Even the way the knots were tied was meant to symbolize specific Hebrew lettering. Essentially, however, historical phylacteries are small boxes or pouches which are worn on the arms and between the eyes. Within the pouches are a specific arrangement of passages from the Torah, written on tiny scrolls of paper. This is likely where the idea of a lich's phylactery being a metal box filled with tiny magical scrolls came from.

One of the archetypical things which liches do is hide their phylacteries. Common ideas are to hide it in a fortress somewhere, or to give it to a powerful dragon to protect. I've been involved in discussions on /tg/ and elsewhere which focus just on coming up with the most outrageous, funny, and clever ways to hid a phylactery. And I've heard some positively fantastic ideas. But the historical phylactery was a thing which had to be worn. You couldn't leave it at home and continue to rely on the spiritual protection it provided.

Of course, if every lich was wearing their phylactery dangling between their eyes, the monster would loose all of its flavor. But what if there was a limit to how far away the phylactery could be from the lich? Say, it must be within 1 mile of the lich's location. For each additional mile away, the lich suffers from 1 negative level, and if the lich reaches 0, it dies and re-forms at the location of its phylactery. Perhaps the lich might even get some kind of bonus if its phylactery is within 100ft, say, plus one caster level? Adding a mechanic like this takes nothing away from the the fun of hiding the lich's phylactery, and in fact may end up being a great deal more fun for the players. Looking for a hidden item can be fun, but if that item is in an adamantite box which shifts to a random location in the multiverse every 30 seconds, the players are simply going to get bored. Adding limits gives the players somewhere to start their investigation. Plus, this adds a fun element to the game of a lich needing to actively manage their phylactery's location in order to avoid negative levels.

Also interesting is that the wearer of a historical phylactery was not supposed to enter a cemetery, or "any unseemly places" whilst wearing it. Again, this suggests some interesting possibilities for the lich's phylactery. Since liches never have their phylactery, it wouldn't make sense for certain places to only be accessible when the lich didn't have it, but what if there were certain places a lich couldn't enter UNLESS it had its phylactery with it? Such as an area which is consecrated, or perhaps they cannot go within 10 miles of their original birthplace without their phylactery. It might even be interesting to say that a lich could never enter a cemetery without its phylactery. Though, given a lich's frequent need for necromancy reagents, this could make things difficult.

There are a number of rules for historical phylacteries...actually there are a plethora of rules. There is an entire pantheon of rules. This is, after all, Judaism. The rules range from the spacing on the letters on the little scrolls, to the attention span of the chap scribing those letters, to even the color of the case. Largely, I don't think these have much application. They could be fun if one was trying to come up with a good ritual for creating a phylactery, but unless a character becoming a lich is the focus of a campaign, I don't think it's particularly useful to go into the creation process too much. Although that would be a kickass campaign.

However, this rule caught my eye: "The straps (Yad. iii. 3) were made of the same material as the boxes, but could be of any color except blood-red." Perhaps I'm shooting in the dark, here, but what if blood were harmful to phylacteries? What if, perhaps, blood was the ONLY thing which could harm a phylactery. The blood of a goodly person--or perhaps even the blood of a fallen hero. The phylactery must be coated with it, and then it becomes as brittle as a twig.

I encourage you to read up on the historical phylactery yourself, and comment on your own ideas for making a lich's phylactery more interesting!

Magical Marvels 4: Gravewhisper's Claw

This week's artifact kopesh is again from my Ascendant Crusade campaign, much like the previous two artifacts Wallcraft's Offerings and Kofek's Tongue. This weapon is again illustrated by my ladyfriend. You should check out more of her art on her DeviantArt page.

Gravewhisper's Claw
Artifact Kopsh

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KOPESH

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The kopesh is the ancient Egyptian name for a type of sword dating back to 3,000-2,000 B.C.E. The hooked design of the sword was, ostensibly, to allow warriors to grab shields out of their opponent's hands. The sword was used in the Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 supplement "Arms and Equipment Guide," as a heavy slashing weapon which could be used for trip attacks. The base weapon is exotic, can be wielded in one or two hands, costs 20gp, deals 1d8 slashing damage, has a crit range of 19-20 and multiplies damage by 2 on a critical attack. This is something of a misrepresentation of the weapon, which had a narrow, light blade. For my own purposes, I combined the more traditional blade design and purpose with the thicker width and high damage.

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PHYSICAL ATTACKS

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(Blade) 2d8 + 5 (Slashing)(19-20/x2)

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SPELLS GRANTED

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1/Day - True Strike, cast by whispering "Blade of mine, fail me not!" This is a free action. The next attack gains a +20 attack bonus, and ignores any miss chance from concealment. (Pathfinder Core Rulebook Pg. 363)

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SPECIAL ABILITIES

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• The blade of Gravewhisper's Claw has one of the keenest edges ever forged. Not only was the swordsmith a master of their craft, but magical enhancements to further narrow the edge, and protect it from dullness have been cast upon the weapon with the skill of the greatest of archmages. This grants the weapon its additional 1d8 damage die on top of the standard kopesh.
• Aside from the powerful sharpness enchantments upon the blade, Gravewhisper's Claw also holds an enchantment which causes the edge of the blade to be hot as a blacksmith's fire. When attacking, Gravewhisper's Claw is able to ignore up to 8 hardness. This allows the wielder to cut into stone as though it were paper. Even steel provides little more resistance than leather. This bonus does not apply to Damage Reduction, nor does it bypass any amount of Armor Class. It does, however, aid in sunder attempts.
• Anyone wielding Gravewhisper's Claw gains the Improved Sunder feat if they do not already have it. Sunder attempts attempted by the wielder do not provoke attacks of opportunity, and are made with a +2 bonus. Additionally, the wielder gains +2 to their combat maneuver defense against sunder attempts.
  
• Gravewhisper's Claw's hooklike blade can be used to make a trip attempt. If the wielder is tripped during their own trip attempt, they can drop Gravewhisper's Claw to avoid being tripped.
  
• Gravewhisper's Claw's hooklike blade can be used to make a disarm attempt at a +2 bonus to the wielder's combat maneuver check. This is in addition to the +2 granted by the Improved Sunder feat, for a total of +4.
  
• The first time anyone takes hold of the hilt of Gravewhisper's Touch, they are immediately affected by a powerful illusion which last several hours for them, but for others appears to last only a few minutes. In this illusion, the wielder experiences the greatest battle the blade was ever involved in: the fall of Niston.
  

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APPEARANCE

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Gravewhisper's claw is made of polished black adamantine, and inlaid into an ornate hilt of silvery mithril. The grip of the blade is wrapped tightly in red leather--made from the skin of a Balor killed within the realms of the Abyss. A large sapphire is serves as the pommel of the blade, and two thin bands of gold encircle the silvery hilt just below the blade. The blade itself is thicker than the blade of a standard kopesh, and it hooks more sharply at the end. The edge of the blade glows a dull red color, and though it does not burn to the touch, water which strikes the edge instantly turns to steam. In the crook of the blade floats an ancient Negunian rune. The rune is insubstantial, so objects can pass through it as though it were not there. Roughly translated, the rune means "loyalty above all," with the connotation of strong, even romantic, affection.

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HISTORY

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When it was created, this blade had another name. It was commissioned by an an ancient king who ruled over the entire continent of Negune from the great city of Oriac, which spanned the entire isle of Argania. The blade was to be given as a gift to the king's mightiest servant who resided far to the North, who was presently quelling a small uprising there. The blade was sent to the king's servant's forward command post by way of a heavily guarded caravan. It was to be the symbol which would carry the royal army to victory against the rebellion.

Unfortunately for the king, a rebel force which had made its way deep into the king's territory ambushed the caravan, and stole many of its treasures; including the mighty blade. Instead of serving as a symbol of the king's generosity and his people's unity, it came to represent the might of the rebellion, and the ability of the people to strike a blow against the seemingly invincible armies which ruled over them. The sword rallied the people to the rebellion's cause. And though it took twenty years and countless lives, the rebellion overthrew the king and his kingdom.

The end of the war also saw the end of law on the continent. After twenty years, the rebels were ruthless in their extermination of all that their overlords had stood for. The entire city of Oriac was razed to the ground. Its books, its artwork, its many treasures were lost forever. The rebels had come to find authority so distasteful that they rejected the very notion of government. The continent descended into tribalism for centuries, descending eventually into barbarism. For some time the blade would appear here or there for a generation or two, in the hands of a powerful warrior. But it soon became lost.

It wasn't until several millenia later, after the continent had been re-settled by immegrants from another land that the blade was rediscovered by an Illumian adventurer named Byert Gravewhisper. It had made its way into the bottommost depths of an unexplored crypt within the boarders of the Regalian province of Volpan. He was there with his adventuring party, led by she who would someday come to be known as The Whispered Queen, looking for the one true c0py of The Book of Vile Darkness, bound by Vecna's own hand. It was easy to spot, for though a thick layer of dust had settled over its entire surface, the red glowing edges burned away any dust which settled upon them.

Byert carried the blade with him through the rest of his adventures. The weapon's original name and history had been lost to the ages, so he dubbed the blade "Gravewhisper's Claw." It served him well as he adventured across the continent, and later as he conquered the continent as a general of The Whispered Queen. It was during this period that he commissioned an enchantment placed upon the blade. A passionate military historian, Byert collected many historical weapons and had them enchanted to allow him to re-live the weapons' greatest battle in an illusory world.

The weapon remained by Byert's side until his ultimate demise by the side of The Whispered Queen, over a thousand years after he first took the blade for his own. One of the warriors who defeated the Whispered Queen took the blade as his own for a short time. But shortly before his death, he donated it to the clerics of Byblyx, an order which holds the preservation and sharing of knowledge to be the greatest commandment of their goddess. Since then, the blade has been kept in a museum within the capital city of the new Negunian Republic.

NPC Reactions

Fair warning: the job that pays for my rent has been exhausting lately. I fell asleep immediately after coming home last night, and didn't wake up until morning. I had a rough outline of this post prepared already, but don't have as much time as I'd planned on to actually put it together.

Non-player characters pose a real challenge for me, as a game master. Much as I pride myself on improvisation as a general skill, I am not at all satisfied with my ability to conjure up interesting NPCs on the spot. Over the years I've found that I default to a handful of naming conventions (Um...it'll start with a P..."Hello traveller! My name is...Pyort!" *Players all crack up*) and that all my voices, personalities, etcetera start to sound suspiciously similar over time. An entire world full of Pyorts is not a good idea, let me tell you.

To try to remedy this failing of mine, I've tried coming up with a number of tools. I once spent a good six months working on a PHP script which would randomly generate a bunch of "seed" information for an NPC. The idea was that you could hit a button, and be given a race, class, personality type, mood, name, etc. All of which were suited to my campaign setting. The whole project had the added bonus of helping me hone my sloppy PHP skills. Unfortunately I had to move just as the project was gaining momentum, so it's been on the back burner for going on three years now.

The project may have been overly ambitious in the first place anyway. These days I'm convinced that there must be a simpler, more elegant way to make NPCs distinct from one another. One which doesn't require that I have a laptop behind the GM screen. There are, after all, a number of identifiable things which modify a person's attitude and behavior. Cultural traits, for example. There have been some interesting studies about how culture modifies a person's behavior, even within the united states. For example, as a statistical average, people in the south are more likely to be polite, but they're also more likely to become violent if they feel they've been insulted or marginalized. Whereas my experience in the pacific northwest for 24 years has led me to expect that people are largely passive aggressive about their feelings. That's a pretty big difference, and it's the same species within the same country. Imagine a world like Pathfinder's where there are literally different races. (In fact I did look at that question just recently.)

Over the last few days, however, I've been thinking much more about what makes people act the way they do in my own life. If I go outside and talk to my neighbors, or to my girlfriend, or to my coworkers, or to my friends, what will affect the way they act towards me? We're all the same species, and we all live in the same area, so ostensibly we would have the same basic rules about social interaction. Yet even day to day a given person can change the way they act. So what's going on, and how can it help me make a better NPC? The way people act around one another is heavily influenced by their mood, their reaction to your mood and appearance, and a myriad of other tiny details which could be placed on a simple random chart for quick NPC generation.

• Just received good/bad news/experience This can be small news, like receiving a discount on an item at the shop, or stubbing one's toe. Or it can be bigger things, such as when a merchant arranges a deal which will ensure long-term profits for them, or when a farmer learns that his neighbors farm has been ravaged by locusts and fears he may be next. People are more likely to be helpful and friendly when they've received good fortune, and more likely to be unhelpful and dour when they've received bad. And, of course, the level to which their mood affects them is proportional to how good or how bad the news is.
• Looking forward to something with anxiety/excitement Anxiety and Excitement can manifest themselves very similarly to having just received good or bad news, but in either case a person is likely to be preoccupied with something which is going to happen soon, and may not have as much time for strangers.
  
• First impression of you is good/bad People have many standards by which they judge a person. The aristocracy, or other contributing members of society, might find you dirty and unpleasant due to your adventuring lifestyle. However, they might also look on you as a curiosity. Someone with interesting tales to tell. Likewise a farmer might see an adventurer as a compatriot. Many adventurers are low-born folk, and they live roughly as low-born folk do. Unlike knights, adventurers are just trying to get by rather than serving a lord. But adventurers also have a nasty reputation for wooing farmer's daughters (or sons).
  
• Likes/doesn't like members of your gender/race/class/etc The fantasy worlds that many of us play in are based on a medieval world which, in reality, was insanely prejudiced. Now, I am strongly of the opinion that in most fantasy adventure games, history should be ignored on this point. I won't go into that here, because I could write an entire post on that topic. However, it's perfectly legitimate for individual people (or towns or cultures) to hold a particular prejudice which makes them difficult for specific player to deal with. Wizards or Sorcerers could be viewed as untrustworthy, or as offensive to reality. Perhaps men are viewed by a particular culture to be brutish and rude. And elves, don't get me started on those slack-jawed daffodils...
  
• Generally outgoing/introverted This one seems pretty simple, really. Some people are friendly and eager to interact with new people. They're most likely to be helpful on minor issues, though it doesn't necessarily mean they'll go out of their way for strangers. More introverted folks may be no less friendly, but they're not going to be as comfortable dealing with people they're not already familiar with.
  

Succubi in Succubus Town

I'm obsessed with Comma, Blank_'s Google Analytics profile. Fiddling around with it, learning new things about my traffic, and watching the ways in which my readership has grown in the last few months tickles me pink. And more than anything else, I obsess over are search terms. Knowing what people are looking for when they find your site is not only useful, but it can be gods damned hilarious. Someone searching for "bar0n'ika" ended up finding Colorful Characters 4: Baron Ika of the Treebreaker Tribe, and someone searching for "erotic art inspired by the dungeons & dragons monster manual" found a scan from the 3.5 Monster Manual which I once uploaded but never used.

Hits from unusual search terms like those listed above tend to be rare. Most people find Comma, Blank_ by searching for much more mundane terms: dungeon door, elf archer, orc ranger, etc. One unusual term, however, is actually quite common. In fact, it is the number one search term which leads people to visit this site: "Succubi in Succubus town."

The page these folks are finding, of course, is my post from early December entitled "Succubi Deserve More," which I think is among some of my better work. I'm only too happy that people are finding it. But I can't help but wonder why in the world so many people are searching for this term in the first place. I tried searching it myself, and can find no reference to any kind of succubus town whatsoever. Mostly it's just novels by a woman named Nina Harper. I would think that, given the frequency with which the term is searched for, that it was an actual reference to something which could be found online. But no such luck.

In discussing this oddity with some of my friends, we got to joking about what a succubus town might look like. Which is when it hit upon me that I should actually start taking notes on our conversation, because writing a post about a town populated entirely by succubi sounds awesome.

The City of Al Uzzara
Colloquially known as "Succubus Town," or just "Sex City," Al Uzzara is an opulent metropolis located on the 570th layer of the Abyss; Malcanthet's Domain. Unlike many parts of the abyss it is generally considered a pleasant place to visit. The entire permanent population of Al Uzzara are succubi and incubi, and within the city limits these otherwise evil creatures seem intent on nothing but making their guests comfortable and happy during their stay.

Unfortunately, no one is able to truthfully explain precisely how their stay was made pleasant. A permanent and powerful enchantment on the city of Al Uzzara causes any non-succubus who visits to completely forget anything which happened there within an hour of their departure. All they are left with is a vague sensation of how they felt about their stay.

Atmosphere
On the surface, Al Uzzara is a place where any being can satisfy their carnal urges easily and cheaply. Every inn doubles as a brothel, and every eating establishment is accompanied by a burlesque show. Demons are the city's most common patrons, but beings of many cultures which view planar travel as commonplace visit Al Uzzara frequently. Even humanoids are a common enough sight here, though few creatures of a goodly alignment ever willingly travel to the abyss.

The succubic residents of Al Uzzara happily alter their mannerisms, their forms, even their gender, so as to appeal to the aesthetic sensibilities of their visitors. And succubi are very good at determining a creature's innermost desires. The guile and trickery which is known throughout the multiverse to be synonymous with succubi seems conspicuously absent here. Most who venture here become overwhelmed by the decadent possibilities to dwell on that curiosity. Those few who do look beyond the surface of Al Uzzara quickly find the natives to be much less friendly. If they are unlucky enough to actually discover anything, they may never return from the city of sex.

In truth, the city is, literally, a breeding ground of demonic soldiers and slaves. The succubi of Al Uzzara entice their male visitors to engage in as much debauched sex as possible, allowing the succubi to give birth to demon spawn which may then be sold as troops for the generals of the blood war, or as slaves to anyone who desires them. Female visitors are likewise encouraged to entertain their wildest desires, only to then be drugged, and have their gestation periods magically accelerated. When they awake they will never know what evil's they've helped bring into existence.

Layout
Al Uzzara is a walled city, with many high towers and sky bridges overlooking the beautiful, but deadly, gardens of the 570th layer of the abyss. It is divided into a number of districts designed to appeal to a variety of archetypical sexual predilections. There are posh pleasure palaces, and lascivious libraries. A district of seedy back alley debauchery, and one of not-so-chaste religious figures--though none of the churches here are consecrated of course. There are even areas of the city for those who like to dominate, or be dominated by others. The city's main roads are designed to allow visitors to travel directly to an area which suits their desires, without passing into an area they may not want to visit.

The Nexus: All throughout Al Uzzara are hidden doors. Every bedchamber, every harem, every place where a visitor might think themselves alone (save their companionship) is accessible from the nexus. It is a circular stone chamber, buried deep beneath the deepest basements of the city above. Seven ascending ramps spiral outward from the bottom of the chamber. Every few feet along the wall of the chamber is a portal, showing a view of the chamber it leads to. Walking through the portal causes one to appear in some innocuous place out of sight of the room's occupants. The Nexus is used both to carry female guests to the birthing chamber, and to secretly switch out a male guest's companions, so that his previous companions may visit the birthing chamber.

The Birthing Chamber: A short hallway at the bottom of the Nexus leads to the Birthing Chamber. Succubi, inherently capable of controlling their own reproductive process, visit here only to drop off their spawn in cages to be sold later. For the non-succubi who are brought here, there are a rows of comfortable couches attended by succubi particularly adept in sorcerous magics. They accelerate the gestation periods of these females, dull their pain and heal any damage caused by the birthing, then call on others to carry them back through the nexus while their young are prepared for sale.

The Horns: The horns are the two tallest buildings in Al Uzzara. They are conically shaped--wide at the base, and rising to a point at the top. This is the only visible portion of the city which visitors are not allowed to access, and in fact, it can only be accessed by one with the ability to fly. The right tower is the seat of the city's government. Malcanthet reigns supreme over Al Uzzara, as she does over the entire 570th layer, but she rarely visits this city. The rule of Al Uzzara is largely left to a council of 30 succubi, whose primary concerns are drawing willing victims to the city, and bartering deals with those who wish to purchase the slaves the city produces. The left tower is home to the city's enforcers, collectively known as biters. Violence and conflict are rare in Al Uzzara, and when they occur there is normally a succubus on hand who can easily handle the situation themselves. The biters primarily concern themselves with watching for any who have remained in the city too long, or who seem to be paying too much attention to how the city is run.

Designing a Village in Detail

Not too long ago, Zalekios conquered a small village. It's something I've wanted the character to do for some time. And, in our last game, my GM was gracious enough to include an opportunity for conquest. To be honest, I have no grand and evil scheme to further overpower my character through corrupt governance. Certainly, I have plans on how I'll make use of my subjects, but the ways in which the town will benefit Zalekios are much less interesting to me than the challenges and opportunities ruling over a town will provide. The need to fortify it, defend it, and ensure that my subjects are unable to oust me while I'm out adventuring, all sound like interesting and entertaining challenges to me.

So once I had the town under my thumb, I asked my GM if it would be alright for me to make a detailed map of the village. He agreed, and we spent some time going over what my limitations were. Geographically, the village is located in a large area of plains, with no major shifts in elevation or terrain type for several miles around. Neither are there any significant bodies of water, or forested areas nearby. Honestly, I think he just made the environment as simple as possible because he's afraid of my ingenuity. But that's okay with me. I like a challenge.

I was also told that I had a total of 377 villagers, 27 of which could be level 1 experts, adepts, warriors, or aristocrats. The rest are level 1 commoners. Other than that, he left everything up to me. I've checked in with him periodically throughout the town creation process, but he hasn't vetoed any of my decisions yet. Of course, I've kept everything in line with what one would find in a dirt-poor town, so he hasn't had much to say "no" to. He and I have been playing games together long enough that we have a pretty good sense of what the limits are in each other's games.

Now, even as a GM, I don't often have the opportunity to truly build a thoroughly detailed community. Normally it's simply not an efficient use of time. It's much easier and faster to simply plot out the most basic outline of what the town is like: what kind of government it has, what its economy is based on, whether it has any unusual traditions or culture, and whether it has any noteworthy landmarks or NPCs. Everything else can be generated on the fly. Even with more detailed cities which my players return to often, I rarely do more than sketch out general "districts," and identify the location of the main roads through the town. The port city of Niston, which the players in my Ascendant Crusade game have visited in between adventures for several years now, is still just a rough collection of squares marked "Affluent Area," "Merchant Section," "Slum," "Docks," and so on.

As a player preparing to govern this town, however, I find the idea of exacting detail appealing. Knowing precisely how many warriors are in the town guard will help me plan my defenses. And since the character in question is Zalekios, knowing just how many commoners I can eat before my breeding stock gets too low is important! Additionally, a large part of my plans involve modifying the town, in the form of watch towers, walls, work camps, etc, so I want to know precisely what I have to work with.

I decided to start by figuring out what kind of population I have. I broke my population into three age based groups. First would be children, defined by Pathfinder as anyone under 15 years old. Last there's the elderly, which I defined as anyone over 55. In between those two groups are the adults. So out of my 377 total population, I needed to figure out how many people fell into the three groups. I decided to use a population pyramid to work out a basic percentage. I spent some time looking for one which applied specifically to medieval villages, but didn't have any luck finding one. So I just stuck with the closest to average I could find. What I wound up with, using some very rough estimation, is 91 children, 260 adults, and 26 elderly. I figure that, to keep things simple, I would split the genders evenly. Since my population is an odd number, I flipped a coin, and determined that the odd person out is a woman named Old Ms. Dyterran, by far the oldest person in the village at 84 years. Her children are dead of old age, but she lives with her grandson and his family. She likes to tell scary stories to children.

Outliers such as old Ms. Dyterran aside, I find these numbers to be telling of the type of community this is. With a max population of 377, it's a very small community. People's lives will be interconnected. But I would estimate that the community is still too large for everyone to know everyone else. Even acquaintance level relationships are difficult to maintain when there's several hundred of them. However, when you break things down by age, the numbers get remarkably smaller. If there are only 91 children under the age of 15, then how few must there be between the ages of 8 and 12? If there's only ten or twenty kids your age in town, you probably know all of them. That goes doubly so for the old folks, who probably all know each other quite well by now.

Moving on, I estimated that there would be 89 households, based on the adult population. That's assuming that every household is centered around an adult couple. Children and elderly would live with said couples, as would a number of dependent adults who are over the age of 15, but have not yet struck out on their own. This would mean that there are 2.9 adults per household, 1.02 children per household, and 0.29 elderly per household. So if you walk into one of these 89 homes at random, the odds are that there are two wedded adults there, who live with one young child and one adult child. And there is a roughly one-in-three chance that one of the couple's parents is still alive, and also living in the house. So most homes contain 4-5 people.

Once I had some ideas on what the population numbers looked like, I moved on to economics. Fun fact, if you google "Plains People," all you really come up with are the Plains Indians, and they were nomads, so information on them was no help in this project. However, Wikipedia has a great deal of information on plains which I found extremely useful in this endeavor. While it may not be an ideal source if you're looking for facts you can rely on, Wikipedia more than accurate enough if you're just looking to inject a little realism into your role playing games. Turns out "plains" is an exceptionally broad category, which covers dozens of terrain types.

I decided that my GM's goal in providing me with an endless flatland of plains was probably closest to the American prairie. Which, I learned, is excellent for farming. However, farming there required more advanced farming equipment than was available when it was first settled. Apparently, up until that point, farmers used wooden plows, but steel plows needed to be developed to handle the tougher earth. I decided one of my experts would need to be a dedicated toolmaker. Animal husbandry is also an option for people living in an area like the American prairie. Using that information, I decided that farming would be the main source of food and income for this village, with pigs and chickens providing them with some dietary variety.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

The only major landmarks of note are the homes of the mayor and wizard, both of whom Zalekios killed in his secret coup. Since Zalekios is impersonating the mayor, he's taken up that residence, and billeted his small army of 33 goblins in the Wizard's home. I mocked up this "Town Character Sheet" in open office writer.



From there, it was time to draw the map. As with the previous steps, I decided to do some research first. I dug through a number of sources for maps, including my own books, the Cartographer's Guild, and just plain old google image search. I saved a few dozen samples to reference as I went to make my own map, and used elements from several of them. However, this map, from the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, was my biggest aide. It is at the same time both extremely simple, and extremely detailed. If you step back and look at the whole map, you see what appears to be a birds eye view of a large city. Each building and side street is distinct, and you get a sense of what the town is like from a street view. There are clearly affluent areas near the parks, with larger houses, etc, along with poorer areas of much smaller buildings clustered together. Yet for all its detail, the map is drawn quite simply. Each individual building is little more than a brown shape with either an "X" or an "I" drawn on top of it to indicate the slant of the roof.

To start with, I sketched out a "districts" map, like the ones I mentioned above. It looked like a series of circles, like a bulls-eye. The small, center circle was designated for important buildings, like the mayor's residence. It's also the location of the town square, where meetings would be held. Around that is the residential area. This was a much larger section, which would contain most of the town's buildings, arranged around the center of town roughly evenly. The largest circle, by a significant margin, is the farmland, which surrounds the entire town.

Here's what I've come up with so far:

The areas of brown within the town indicate pig pens, whilst I imagine many homes have chicken coops next to them. The small circles in the center of the two ancillary "town squares" represent wells. The two white buildings are the Mayor's residence and the Wizard's home. The crosshatch patterns surrounding the town represent farmland.

There are still a number of problems with this map. My scale is way off, for one thing. The more important buildings near the center of town should be much larger, while the residential buildings can be relatively small. The farmland was also truncated due to the limited size of the paper. Normally I'd remake the map before posting it, but at this point I'm not sure I'll bother remaking this map. Even though it's not "to scale," it effectively demonstrates the layout of the town.

Anybody else have experience detailing small towns? Any tips on how to improve my process?

Succubi Deserve More

Warning: I do discuss sex a great deal in this post. I've tried to keep things clean, but this is an extended post about sex demons. Consider yourself forewarned.

I love Succubi. Not because they're often portrayed as sexually aggressive women with fangs and wings. The overuse of that trope is precisely the problem, actually. My fascination for succubi is similar to my fascination with vampires; as monstrous foes, they are unique in their use of guile and charm. While vampires have been characterized in many different ways, particularly in recent years, my favorite kind of vampire has always been one which suffers from all the many weaknesses of his or her kind. Must avoid garlic, must avoid holy symbols, cannot cross running water under their own power, cannot enter a building unless invited, and of course, cannot go out during the day. Vampires are more defined by their weaknesses than by their strengths, and they compensate for these manyfold weaknesses with charm. They are suave, persuasive, and seductive. Before you know it, your attractive, pale lover is nibbling your neck. And not as foreplay.

In a fantasy world, Succubi are sex. They don't have sex, they embody sex. Assuming you play a game with good lore, succubi are also demons. Demons are pure manifestations of chaos and evil. Ergo, succubi are everything which is chaotic and evil about sex, made manifest. They draw their greatest pleasure from adulterous spouses, breakers of chastity vows, and authority figures who abuse their power for fleshly pleasure. Any sexual immorality which exists in your game world is one which a succubus will seek to cause. And the greater the damage, the greater the succubus' pleasure. Breaking up a marriage is lovely, but bringing down nations or causing a genocide? That's what really gets a succubus off. Helen of Troy was perhaps the greatest succubus of all time.

Lamentably, succubi are never portrayed this way. If they happen to appear in films or literature, it is almost always as an extremely sexually aggressive woman. There's nothing wrong with a succubus being a sexually aggressive woman, mind you, but that attitude is one tool among many, not their baseline attitude. Succubi are masters of seduction. They can switch their personalities to fit the preferences of those around them as only a master manipulator can. Of course, the portrayal of the succubus in games is arguably even worse. The index of monsters invariably includes a picture of a beautiful demon woman, naked or nearly so, resting seductively next to a statistics block which describe her ability to magically charm & dominate. D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder actually describe the succubus' ability to bestow negative levels with a kiss.

I get it. There are not many people who want to sit around the game table feeling uncomfortable while the GM uses NPCs to play out sex fantasies. And I understand that D&D still suffers from a lot of stigmatization. Neither WotC nor Paizo want to be featured in a Fox News segment about the corruption of America's youth. But most of the images I've included in this post? They come right out of D&D / Pathfinder books. I don't think any parents are being fooled about what the succubus is. I couldn't find a good scan of the succubus from the D&D 3.X Monster Manual. That one actually has visible areolae. Bright red ones. How's that for cognitive dissonance? Visual representations of exposed breasts are fine, but the raciest we can get in the text is "kiss?"

I would like to make clear that I am not arguing that including a succubus in a game requires a GM to allow wanton eroticism. But these are powerful and interesting creatures with a unique place in human mythology. I don't like to see them reduced to a thinly veiled excuse to include a pair of tits in the adventure. Too many times have I seen a succubus used as a wandering monster, as if they were no more sophisticated than a skeleton or imp. And once encountered, GMs rarely attempt guile, preferring the crack of the succubus' inexplicable dominatrix whip instead.

I like to explore the mythology behind fantasy tropes. Often it's a great deal more interesting than the tropes themselves. I'd like to take this opportunity to share some of the succubus' mythology, to help illustrate my point. Bear in mind that I am not a scholar of medieval Christianity, nor am I well versed in Jewish mythology. Most of my information on the subject comes from google & wikipedia. And even assuming that the information I read is accurate, I could easily have misunderstood something. In other words, I am not a credible source.

A great many cultures have tales of demons and spirits which resemble the succubus. The succubus we know today draws primarily from the legends of medieval Europe. The Catholic church was even more ridiculous about sexual morality back then than they are now. So if a fellow awoke in the morning to find that he had pitched a tent, or - ahem - had a nocturnal emission, it wasn't an innocent occurrence. Sex was so taboo that the source of these disturbances was deduced to be demonic. And thus was the succubus invented; a demoness who appears in men's dreams in the form of a woman. Her goal was to steal men's seed for her own devious ends.

A likely satirical tome called the Alphabet of Sirach provides an origin for the succubus. I'm not sure if this book was responding to existing folklore about succubi, or if said folklore only took hold after the book was written. According to the AoS, Eve was not the first wife of Adam. Before her, God created a woman from the earth and called her Lilith. And then, as the story goes:

Adam and Lilith began to fight. She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be in the superior one.' Lilith responded, 'We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.' But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air.

Not sure why Lilith can fly. Again, I'm no scholar, but my guess would be that "the Ineffable Name" would be the true name of god. Speaking it is blasphemous in the Jewish tradition, so perhaps simply by speaking she has already taken on demonic traits such as wings.

Regardless, Adam then calls to God, complaining that his woman has run away. God pursues her, but finds her unwilling to return, and so she is cursed so that each day, one hundred of her children will die. God then returns to Adam, and makes Eve out of his rib. Apparently, ribs make for much more demure, obedient women than earth does. Lilith later mated with an archangel, spawning the demon queens, and eventually, the entire race of succubi.

So, as established above, succubi harvest semen from sleeping men. But what do they do with it? I found a couple different explanations, but my favorite comes from an Inquisitor named Heinrich Kramer in 1486. To quote him:

Another terrible thing which God permits to happen to men is when their own children are taken away from women, and strange children are put in their place by devils. And these children, which are commonly called changelings, or in the German tongue Wechselkinder, are of three kinds. For some are always ailing and crying, and yet the milk of four women is not enough to satisfy them. Some are generated by the operation of Incubus devils, of whom, however, they are not the sons, but of that man from whom the devil has received the semen as a Succubus, or whose semen he has collected from some nocturnal pollution in sleep. For these children are sometimes, by Divine permission, substituted for the real children.

There is no better fantasy sourcebook than religion.

The emphasis above is mine. To put it into slightly more clear language, what the inquisitor is saying is that a succubus is able to transform between the female form, and the male (incubus) form. So first, the demon harvests a man's seed as a succubus, then transforms itself into an incubus, and impregnates a woman with the semen stolen from the man. And let me just say that, as a philosophy major, it tickles the hell out of me to see respected scholars like Aquinas taking this stuff seriously.

Of course, we need not tie ourselves to mythology as though it is dogma. Study of the source material merely gives us some perspective to help ground our own ideas. Part of the fun of being a game master in a fantasy game is the opportunity to place our own fantastical ideas next to time tested ones like the succubus, vampire, or Medusa. We can even modify those creatures themselves if we so choose, though, my experience is that keeping a creature grounded in its core concept always produces the best results.

So, all of that having been said, here are some things I like to add to the succubus.

• Taking on pleasing forms is basic to a succubus' art. They become tall, short, blonde, brunette, thin, round, whatever their victim desires most. So for a creature which relies on its shape shifting ability constantly, a permanent mark which cannot be shape-shifted could lead to interesting situations. Perhaps many succubi get tattooed in obscure locations to associate themselves with a specific demon lord or lady. And while most weapons would leave no scar on a succubus, a weapon of strong good alignment could leave a small mark behind even after healing. Not much of one, but something a perceptive character could spot.
  
• Succubi have their own aesthetic. In their natural state, all succubi demonstrate some number of demonic traits. Some have cloven feet, some have tails, some have spines. Some even have scales or glowing red eyes. The only demonic traits which all succubi share are wings and horns. But there is a great deal of variance in the types of even those two features. Some wings are leathery, while others are feathered, and still others seem to be made of shadow, or silk. Horns most often sprout from the head, but they could sprout from the chin, or even the cheeks of a succubus, and they form in any number of shapes.
  
• Succubi have the ability to enter into the dreams of any sleeping character at will. While in a character's dreams, the Succubi plants enticing suggestions. When the character wakes, he or she will be less capable of resisting the succubus' charm.
  
• Succubi have no technical gender. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say they are all hermaphrodites, capable of switching between the male and the female form at will. So each succubus is also an incubus.
• Succubi may breed with any species that reproduces sexually.
  
• Succubi have absolute control over their own reproduction. They may choose the gender of their children, gestation period, and even how many children will be produced from a single coupling.
  
• They may also control how much of their demonic blood infuses the child. At their will, they may produce a small flock of imps, a half demon, a creature which appears completely human, or anything in between. Their only limitation is that they can never birth a child with no demonic blood whatsoever. At the very least, the child will have a predilection for chaos and evil.
• Succubi are immune to disease themselves, but may store and pass on diseases to others.
  
• Succubi feed on the suffering which sexual immorality causes. They can gain experience from any acts which result from their manipulations. (Ex. Helen of Troy would get experience for every Trojan and Greek killed. Ka-ching.)

As a final word on this post, I would like to give a shout out to one of the few sourcebooks which I felt actually did succubi some justice. Two of the best supplements which ever came out for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 were the Fiendish Codex I & II. FC I: Hordes of the Abyss, provided a lot of detail about demons, and the abyss they live in. Aside from including some very useful demonic archetypes (along with charts for each archetype, indicating how likely it was for a particular type of demon to fill that role), the book introduced Malcanthet, queen of the succubi. A mere four pages were all they were able to devote to her in a book which was packed tight with awesome abyssal lore, but those four pages (plus the dragon magazine article released about the same time) were fantastic. I would heartily recommend the book to anyone, regardless of what system you use.