Your lore about Midcon and the mythos you have about the lloigor give me major Esoterrorist vibes. I know that Esoterrorist are in the same crowd as Fall of Delta Green so it isn't too much of a stretch but the idea of something from the "outside" or something from a higher dimensional vibration trying to invent itself in our reality through will and magick really blends it all together for me. Very Cool.
I worked in radio in college and ended up working in an RF career field. I was also an unbelievably angsty virgin in college and spent a lot of my time lurking in occult servers or brooding in the metaphysics section of the library reading shit like the Kybalion. So I really latched onto that idea of imperceptible vibrational forces surrounding us like electromagnetic radiation that we just aren't dialed into.
In his series on David Lynch, Michael S Judge talks about how heterodyne radios with preset frequency configurations or auto scanning transformed radios from portable radiation detectors into a box for "nonstop doo-wop broken up by detergent ads." You used to be able to use them to hear the stars breath, and all the other alien vibrations out there in deep space but got wallpapered over so the ads won't get interrupted. The technology has developed just enough to *not* tell us what's out there and what's coming. That was taken away from us. But that doesn't mean it's actually gone, it means that the people that have the power to steal it are using it for their own purposes-- and you are not allowed to know what those are.
That's sort of where I see the intersection of the lloigor, my fixation with EMF, and the legacy of the Cold War. And I think that concept by itself interests me more than any hard Lovecraftian lore to the point that sometimes I feel like Esoterrorists or a Mage: The Ascension technocracy campaign might be a better medium to tell that story.
I was struggling with them because all my brain was giving me was "dragon made out of trauma" and that wasn't helping until I decided to make it Emmett's lloigor
[Sponsored by @tar-baphon. The name "Lloigor" is related to multiple traditions in the Cthulhu Mythos and Mythos-adjacent works. It initially appears as a proper noun, one of "Lloigor and Zhar", in August Derleth's elaborate family tree of Great Old Ones. It's used as a synonym for "Great Old One" in the Illuminatus! Trilogy, and from there has trickled into the works of Alan Moore. And, in Colin Wilson's "The Return of the Lloigor", it appears as a species of incorporeal psychic dragons. This is an interpretation of that third version.
"The Return of the Lloigor" can be thought of something as a remake of "The Call of Cthulhu", in that the story takes the form of a journal chronicling the narrator's conversion from skepticism to paranoia about a world-spanning cult serving horrors from human prehistory. Only the main action is in Wales, rather than Louisiana and the South Pacific, and the lloigor have a rather more direct hand than Cthulhu. The CR was by the request of the sponsor, which is in keeping with Call of Cthulhu making lloigor top-tier threats, but in the story proper their power is usually limited to causing malaise and pushing old people down the stairs. They can cause explosions, but this seems to be deeply draining for them. In CoC, their ability to drain the mental energy of victims is an area of effect, but I made it a touch attack. Both in order to have a lloigor actually be something a party can encounter and fight, and because I think it's much creepier to catch a glimpse of a tendril-tail actually dipping into your room as your bunk-mate thrashes in their sleep]
Lloigor
CR 18 CE Dragon
This thing resembles a malformed embryonic dragon with oily, pallid skin. It has two long limbs, each of which terminates in a hooked claw, and a long thin tail that lashes and drips behind it. Its face is something like that of a deep sea fish, all staring eyes and long thin teeth.
The lloigor are the creations of the Great Old One Ghanathoa, created in a fit of pique over the physical perfection of dragons. When the world was young, lloigors ruled openly as masters of humanoid creatures, but as humanoid civilizations grew stronger, they went into decline. Lloigors are the ultimate pessimists—they are literally incapable of feeling joy or hope, and feed by draining these emotions from the minds of others and leaving despair in their stead.
A lloigor is intangible, more a pattern of energy than a physical being, and they move effortlessly through soil and stone. Lloigors slip through the ground into people’s homes while they sleep, draining their joy with a touch of their ribbon-like tails. Doing so grants them access to more psychic power, and if a lloigor is expecting a fight, or intends to punish someone, it typically goes on a feeding frenzy to charge its psychic energy. They prefer to fight in incorporeal form for its defensive benefits, but if enemies are capable of injuring it, or if it runs out of psychic magic, it can temporarily assume corporeality and fight with claw and fang.
A lloigor radiates malaise in a wide area, and many benighted towns and areas with unusually high crime rates are under the lloigor’s influence. Those that succumb to a lloigor’s touch too often may have their personalities warped and become evil, and lloigors use their telepathy and ability to shape dreams to encourage people to rob and murder one another. As such, a lloigor’s influence can be subtle and felt throughout an adventurer’s career, long before they are powerful enough to confront a lloigor themselves, or even know what they are. Lloigors keep themselves secret, and have a habit of killing people who speak openly about them.
Lloigor CR 18
XP 153,600
CE Huge dragon (incorporeal)
Init +12; Senses darkvision 120 ft., Perception +31, thoughtsense 120 ft. Aura malaise (1 mile)
Defense
AC 28, touch 28, flat-footed 15(-2 size, +1 dodge, +12 Dex, +7 deflection)
hp 324 (24d10+168)
Fort +20, Ref +26, Will +21
Immune ability damage, ability drain, death effects, fear, paralysis, sleep
SR 29
Defensive Abilities incorporeal traits, negative energy affinity; Weakness hopeless
Offense
Speed 40 ft., fly 60 ft. (perfect), burrow 40 ft. (earth glide)
Melee touch +22 (drain hope)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 20 ft.
Psychic Magic CL 18th, concentration +25 (+29 casting defensively)
15 PE—crushing despair (4 PE, DC 21), dream (4 PE), fear (4 PE, DC 21), greater invisibility (4 PE), invisibility (2 PE), nightmare (5 PE, DC 22), telekinesis (5 PE, DC 22), telekinetic storm (9 PE, DC 26), utter contempt (6 PE, DC 23)
Ecology
Environment underground
Organization solitary
Treasure none
Special Abilities
Assume Flesh (Su) A lloigor can, as a move action, become corporeal. It loses its deflection bonus to AC and incorporeal traits, but gains a natural armor bonus equal to its Dexterity modifier, a Strength score equal to its Dexterity score, and natural attacks. It has a bite, two claws and a tail slap, gains powerful blows with the tail slap and rend with the claws. While corporeal, its statistics are as follows: AC 33, touch (-2 size, +1 dodge, +12 Dex, +12 natural); Melee bite +34 (2d6+12), 2 claws +34 (1d8+12), tail slap +32 (2d8+18 plus drain hope); Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft. (20 ft. with tail slap); Special Attacks powerful blows (tail slap),rend (2 claws, 1d8+18). A lloigor can resume its incorporeal form as a move action. A lloigor can remain corporeal for a number of rounds/day equal to its Hit Dice (24 rounds for an ordinary specimen).
Aura of Malaise (Su) All creatures within 1 mile of a lloigor suffer a -2 penalty on all saves against emotion, fear and madness effects. This does not function in a consecrated or hallowed area.
Drain Hope (Su) The touch of a lloigor’s tail deals 1d6 points of Wisdom damage. A creature that takes this damage must succeed a DC 29 Will save or be affected by the pessimism spell for the next 24 hours. This is an emotion effect and the save DC is Charisma based. A creature that succeeds this save cannot be affected by the pessimism effect for the next 24 hours, and takes minimum damage from that lloigor’s drain hope attack during that duration. If the creature fails this save, the lloigor gains 3 PE. A lloigor can gain PE above its maximum in this way, capping at twice its normal value. A creature that has its Wisdom reduced to 3 or fewer with this ability must succeed a DC 23 Will save or be afflicted with the moral insanity madness. This is a madness effect with a flat DC.
Hopeless (Ex) A lloigor can never gain morale bonuses, and suffers an additional -1 penalty whenever it would suffer from a morale penalty.
Hoo boy this fella was interesting to paint! Typically I like to have reference images to work off of, but turns out there's not a lot of love for the Lloigor out there :(
(More under the break)
So this time I decided to wing it! I ended up combining aspects of the Xenomorph from Alien with aspects from Khezu from Monster Hunter, resulting in this grim, gnarly looking beastie!
I think this extra-planar predator looks pretty darn fearsome, and I think I was able to convey a difference of texture between its pallid hide and near jet black carapace pretty darn well!
