TEXT: GAME MASTER RESOURCE
  Monster Codex
  
  SPOILER ALERT!
  This document contains many 
  revelations regarding the Symbaroum 
  Monster Codex and is only meant for 
  GMs to read. If you intent to play 
  (and not GM) the adventure, you are 
  prompted to stop reading now.
  
  Dear sister,
  I am writing to you from inside an egg of golden threads, with a dying candle as 
  my only source of light. The letters spread over the parchment as the poison spreads 
  through my veins. My killer lies next to me, her body pierced by my trusted estoc; 
  death has captured the many joints of her limbs at unnatural angles, and her face 
  features the spider’s four eyes in a row. Her jaws are poisonous mandibles, one of 
  them broken and set deep in my thigh.
  My other hand is squeezing the Taar-cross, wrongly called an ancient symbol of 
  Prios by the seller in Thistle Hold. It is not a sun, it is a golden spider, the holy 
  symbol of Angathal Taar whose realm once stretched out around a network of 
  pyramids. Serand’s Pyramid is known and surveyed, but I found another, sunken 
  into the ground and untouched for centuries. The taar-cross was my key, the way into 
  the pyramid, down to the lower chambers and the golden egg. Oh, how it sang at my 
  touch; how it opened up, thread by thread, to expose its empty interior. 
  When the watchers came climbing I fled in here to avoid certain death. It was not 
  until the egg closed that I realized that this was their intent, to drive me into this 
  golden trap. I hear them singing out there, hoarse and with clattering jaws. Initially, 
  I wondered if they sang for me or their fallen sister, but now I realize that it is part 
  of the ritual. I will transform, I will die and be reborn as one of them. You who are 
  reading this letter, please take it to my sister in the town of Thistle Hold.
  Beloved sister, the house is now yours, and you won’t have to put up with my 
  sloppiness and dreams of the Spider King. I have been drafted into his army, and 
  the next time we meet, your poisonous words will be nothing compared to the venom of 
  my jaws.
  Respectfully, Lemelio Starak
  
  I 
  didn’t understand the odd looks and signs of protection that were aimed at us in 
  Thistle Hold, and it took a long while before I realized that they actually were 
  about our choice of guide. The masked girl was reclusive and careful not to show her 
  face in view of others, but there is no doubt she was qualified – she found the quickest 
  route through the forest, and on several occasions her instincts led us unharmed past 
  ambushes and traps. Sure, she tracked like a dog, sniffing along the ground, but this is 
  a method also practiced by barbarians. 
  Honestly, I couldn’t see what caused the alarm and worry – until we were surrounded 
  by dragouls. The girl grew wings and flew over us with her bow singing, to later dive 
  to the ground and launch into battle, suddenly tall, muscular and with long, razor-
  sharp claws. I must say, in that moment our guide became the most interesting thing 
  about our expedition.
  Brother Erbalmer
  expedition leader in the name of Prios
  t looked like it would be an easy fight. We had hunted the 
  refugees towards the east, all the way to the foothills of the 
  Ravens. There, they took shelter in the remains of a ruined 
  castle, likely fatigued and with limited supplies. We already 
  knew they were prepared to fight to gain access to the Promised Land, 
  so we closed in with great care, right before dawn, weapons at a ready.
  They saw us coming and answered with arrows, which stopped our 
  advancement and forced us to cower behind our shields, about halfway 
  up the slope. Once the projectile attacks began to slow, we got up and 
  charged. At that precise moment, the sun came up and its first rays 
  reflected off the head of the refugees’ last arrow.
  I admit, I ran, like a coward, like a fool. Honestly, I’d rather accept my 
  punishment than undergo an encounter with the Glimmer. When I later 
  dared to go back, the scene was precisely like the cries and clangor had 
  suggested. All were dead, rangers as well as refugees – broken, battered, 
  lifeless. Better the gallows than that, better the gallows...
  
  Loved ones, dear family, I will never return. I set off to find 
  happiness, and I found it in the most peculiar place, in the strangest of 
  circumstance.
  The journey through the woods cost us many lives, so many that 
  only four of us finally reached Whitewater and continued towards the 
  Twilight Field. If this field really exists, and if it is full of Twilight 
  Thistles, I will never know, because two days upstream we walked 
  straight into my owners’ ambush. We heard nothing, saw nothing, did 
  not get the slightest feeling of unease, until the arrows were lodged in 
  our legs, stopping us from running away.
  Slender unhumans appeared from out of the greenery, disarmed us and 
  tied us up in a row. My colleagues were eaten within a couple of weeks, 
  but you know me – my stubborn inquisitiveness must have amused 
  them, or made them curious, because I still live, as their obedient 
  slave, servant and medicus. I am no longer afraid; all that remains is 
  a harmonious, almost euphoric feeling of finally really living, as life is 
  intended to be.
  Forget me, just as I will forget about you. Know that I am happy.
  Hedla, your mother and spouse
  
  or a long time I traveled with the talkative bard Tulgalo 
  and his mistress, a knight whose armor was covered in 
  runes. The bard referred to the knight as Baroness Kelira 
  Homril; the knight did not say a word and kept her visor 
  down even in the most blistering heat. This did not strike 
  me as particularly strange, as the knights of the Realm of the Order 
  are famously disciplined, not unlike the templars of Prios. 
  either was I unsettled by the knight’s extraordinary composure. 
  When we were attacked by the Ice Witch’s robbers in the 
  borderlands of the Titans, she took blows and strikes like no 
  one I have ever seen. Not even the most hardened Pansar 
  could remain standing after such a beating, but Tulgalo simply put it 
  down to the holy power which the knights of the Realm of the Order 
  draw from their deep faith in the Young Gods. Although this answer 
  offended me, as a follower of Prios, I did not inquire any further. 
  nly when we arrived in Yndaros and went our separate 
  ways did my critical faculties come into play. With growing 
  suspicion, I headed to the open section of the Triplet Towers, 
  where I learned the true state of things: the fiefdom of Homril, near 
  the Realm of the Order’s southern border, was devastated in year 
  4 by raging abominations from the wastes of the Mastodon, and 
  Baroness Kelira died defending her lands. I immediately notified the 
  liturgs at the Cathedral of Martyrs, and received the disconcerting 
  reply that they have been hunting this death prince ever since 
  Master Malesio – who was later exposed as a sorcerer – died and 
  Kelira Homril became her own black princess.
  F
  N
  O
  
  Honorable Eumenos,
  Brother Almagast’s scornful smile and ill-concealed 
  accusations regarding our tendency to underestimate 
  the Dark have proved justified, as befitting as the 
  warnings spoken by the blight-crazed treasure hunter.
  We have arrived at the gorge where he found the 
  artifact, the Sun Mirror. All in our company 
  trusted in the assessment that you, esteemed brother, 
  shared with me and Routefinder – that the beast the 
  treasure hunter spoke of in his sleep must have been 
  a lindworm, and that his speech on “fiery breath” 
  and “roaring wings” were exaggerations caused by 
  fear. But we were wrong, so wrong.
  I hear them now, the roaring wings, and I have 
  seen the creature’s shadow. Moments from now, 
  as we leave this shelter, we will all die. But when 
  starvation is the only alternative, the choice is no 
  real choice. With the grace of Prios, the beast may 
  yet prove reasonable; if not we shall meet again, 
  kneeling by the Lawgiver’s side. 
  Your obedient servant, Sister Disera
  
   The rumor spread like wildfire around the Antique Plaza: “There 
  is an ettermite colony midway between Odaban and the Columns of 
  Haganor!” The news was barely out there before the first bodies fell 
  in the gutter, victims of rivals hunting for Etter Sleep to make the 
  infernal ettermites drowsy. It was at that time I got involved, as the 
  Commandant’s special investigator.
  My thankless assignment was to stop the murder spree, a truly 
  challenging task when such sums of thaler and such dreams are at 
  stake. But I am a loyal servant of the Crown and obviously I did 
  my best. For a moment, when I found out how the rumors had started, 
  I actually believed I could succeed – a fortune hunter named Broona 
  had returned from the designated area with ettercopal in a knapsack; 
  however, not from any ettermite colony but from the lair of a liege troll. 
  I thought myself sly when I spread this news, convinced that it would 
  put an end to the murders. But alas!
  Another, just as damaging, rumor quickly took root: that Mayor 
  Nightpitch tried to silence the affair with false information, hoping 
  to claim the colony’s wealth for himself. Numerous treasure hunting 
  expeditions left for the woods, and few of them ever returned. If it was 
  ettermites or something else that killed them I honestly do not know, but 
  no inflow of ettercopal was ever noticed – this I kept careful track of as 
  part of the investigation.
  
  We arrived at Outback late in the evening. 
  All was still. Too still. The massive oak 
  gates, worthy of an Ambrian fort, were intact. 
  The palisade, standing upon mighty embank-
  ments, remained unbroken. Initially, our cries 
  and knocks at the gate went unanswered 
  and we could do nothing but wait, irresolute 
  with darkening Davokar at our backs. 
  One of the scouts sniffed the air and wheezed: 
  “The stench, can you smell it?” Before we had 
  time to respond, a weak, trembling voice was 
  heard from the gatehouse: “Climb, quickly, climb!” 
  A rope was lowered down and we hurried up. 
  In the light of the fading sun, standing atop the 
  palisade, we saw the many dirt piles around the 
  settlement – and inside it. “Gwann,” our most 
  experienced scout muttered and spit three times 
  over his shoulder. “This explains the stench; 
  this place is doomed and we along with it.”
  
  T
  he outcome of the battle was certain before it began. The sheer number of rage 
  trolls and swarming goblins that sundered our column made it impossible to form 
  a unified defense. The attackers came with a kind of black power, as if strengthened 
  by something, or someone. At times I thought I heard the rhyming words of a lisping 
  child, like an ancient nursery rhyme forcing my warriors to attack their comrades. 
  D
  ivided we fell, group by group. I was one of those who were spellbound, 
  and found myself kneeling before a wall of trolls and goblins, barely able to 
  move. With all my willpower, I raised my book of prayers like a shield, but 
  no words came past my lips. The enemies stepped aside to make way for a small 
  creature. The rhyming child. A goblin? No, a former goblin.
  I
  ts eyes were a serpent’s, its tongue forked, the light danced across its scaly skin. 
  Its gaze was hypnotic and its voice hissing as it spoke: “You travel the land 
  of the King Serpent Gadraaltos; half of what you harvest around Gadraal’s 
  Rock will befall the ruler, death being the penalty for tax evaders. Remind your 
  queen of this simple fact and our realms will prosper, side by side.” The creature, 
  who called itself Squagmatus, let me leave after having used its claws to carve the 
  tax statutes of its master into my chest. 
  T
  he eastern passage to the burned temples is closed. There are shield 
  beasts lurking underground. They broke through our front after only 
  two attack waves. I am surprised that we could even withstand the 
  first crushing assault; such was its shielded might. Once they had broken 
  through, when they were in our midst, it was staff mage against shield beast, 
  duel upon duel. We all know how such battles usually end. 
  I retreated, staff whirling, toward a broken pillar whose top now serves 
  as my writing desk. I am the only one left. There are forsaken staves, 
  broken staves, scattered across the ground below. The beasts dragged their 
  crushed victims down into the burrows. Their own dead, too, to strengthen 
  the survivors through cold-blooded cannibalism. I cannot but feel a certain 
  respect for this foe. As someone said: it is as if they were created to battle 
  staff mages. Even if they were not bred for that purpose, they are certainly 
  very well equipped to withstand the power of our staves, break through our 
  warriors’ ranks, and strike directly at our pathetically feeble flesh.
  The sun is slowly setting, and the violings are gathering. I must either head 
  back down and risk the fury of the shield beasts, or be pecked to death by 
  a hundred greedy beaks as soon as night falls.
  
  “Living thorns? Like some kind of strangling vines? Folly and 
  fantasies, it may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” Aside from 
  a heretical expletive at the moment of surprise, those were Order Master 
  Ulagra’s last words in life.
  We had travelled long through Wild Davokar, and were hopelessly lost. 
  Our supplies were dwindling and what we found in the woods only 
  made us sicker and more confused - a clear sign that we had entered the 
  dark: even if the forest seemed relatively bright and harmonious, it was 
  treacherous in many ways. Just when we feared that all was lost, our 
  guide warned that we were not alone. Only moments later, we all could 
  see her: a witch, sitting on a huge, moss-covered stone, as if in a trance, 
  listening to the wind whispering in the leaves.
  She looked up as we approached. Nothing but a thorny bush separated us 
  from her. Master Ulagra opened his mouth and aske-… no, he ordered 
  the witch to help us. When she didn’t react, our honorable Master of the 
  Order was offended and grew angry, threatening to burn her off the 
  boulder, even summoning an orb of sulfurous fire between his hands to 
  underline the threat. The guide, whispering and pleading, tried to calm 
  the pyromancer’s fiery wrath, but in vain. Not even the information 
  that the thorny bush at the base of the stone was moving in answer to the 
  threat had any effect besides the previously quoted, patronizing harangue 
  about folly and fantasies.
  
   W
  e stood in a row, silent and excited. All 
  of us were marked by corruption; all 
  of us hoped to get rid of the stigmas, 
  dreaming of being able to walk around 
  undisguised, unmasked, without fear. The thought 
  made my heart beat faster. ¶The creature before 
  us was fettered to the wall, like a pinned up, 
  gigantic bat. It squirmed and hissed; it reached for 
  us with the thorny tongue playing in its predatory 
  maw. It was thirsty and we were willing. The row 
  moved steadily forward, as one by one we were 
  licked bloody by the creature. Our Master’s death 
  lord stood ready to pull monster and cultist apart, 
  so that the latter would not be licked to death. 
  ¶It was nearly my turn, but the woman before 
  me refused to be separated from the monster’s 
  kiss. Master saw the danger and cried out to his 
  death lord to part the two; the edge of the rusty 
  sword cut through the head and shoulder of the 
  woman, and the creature jerked back its tongue 
  to save it. Then our Master berated us, about 
  never allowing the beast to drink itself full. And 
  after that, you charged in, so I never received the 
  cleansing kiss. ¶That you mean to burn me, I 
  know. But what will you do with the blight beast?
  
  hey fought in close formation, 
  moving as one large body, rather 
  than as individuals. They fought 
  without words or spoken orders; grunts 
  of exertion and moans of pain were all 
  that came from them. Only when one of 
  them fell did they scream. First one called 
  out the name of the fallen, then the others 
  did the same, all at once. They then 
  fought on in silence, though, if possible, 
  even more frenetically. ¶ They were few, 
  we were many – we slew them all, at the 
  cost of heavy casualties. I heard rumors 
  that there are more like them; that what we 
  fought was but the rearguard of a larger 
  force. Bahiti, Teremun, Madaai, Hadar, 
  Idona. Yes, even now, my beloved will 
  sometimes wake me up as, in a cold sweat, 
  I scream their names in my sleep.
  T
  
  Uncle Janos was always a peculiar man, slightly odd, but not in a 
  threatening way. Just different, you see – a bit too interested in the 
  macabre, perhaps, but no more than the average bored scholar. You 
  know how these bookworms can be, isolated from reality, from the 
  blood, the stench, and the squalor. I have seen a lot of them in my 
  family circle. My mother was in many ways the same. She did not 
  even give birth to me, and therefore never physically experienced the 
  connection between life, pain, and blood. For her, bodily fluids would 
  instead be exclusively associated with unhealthy desires and death.
  Of course, it bothered me when my dear uncle started spending time 
  with the poets in the graveyard; they met at night, reciting poetry over 
  open, empty graves or, even worse, to the decay. From there, perhaps 
  it was not such a big leap to enter the mausoleums as well, and do 
  the same in the direct vicinity of the dead. Then something happened; 
  what I do not know. The City Watch was called to the burial grounds 
  after someone had dug open a grave; shortly thereafter, one of the 
  poets was found dead in an otherwise empty crypt. That was when 
  I decided to confront my uncle, and went to see him.
  I found him emaciated, exhausted, showing signs of madness, with 
  bruises on his hands and dirt under his fingernails. Still, he ensured 
  me that he was well, and that he no longer had anything to do with 
  the poets. To verify whether he was telling the truth, I waited outside 
  his house, and as suspected, he climbed out of his bedroom window 
  wearing nothing but his nightgown. I called out to him, and as he 
  turned toward me, I was petrified. Believe me, the eyes staring back 
  at me from Uncle Janos’ eye sockets were not his own.
  
  I 
  t was unbelievable! We made it all the way to the 
  legendary Serpent Temple of Syravan without casu-
  alties, actually without suffering any kind of wounds, 
  infections or poisons. Master Muldar was like a child at 
  Queen’s Day. He jumped around by the foot of the hill and 
  shouted profanities at his mother, who apparently had never 
  believed in or supported his ambitions, saying that the trea-
  sures would become the death of him. Boy, was she right…
  W 
  e waited until the following morning before para-
  ding up the slope and entering through the vines 
  covering the entrance. Many of us immediately 
  heard it – the clicking, the crunching and the skitter of falling 
  pebbles. But Muldar would not listen, and he did not heed 
  our warnings. He refused to permit us to turn around. I was 
  the only one who disobeyed.
  A 
  s soon as I saw the pale, tiny creatures emerge out of 
  the ground, the walls and the vegetation I turned and 
  ran. Before I even reached the entrance, the creatures 
  had assembled in several hungering swarms that soon 
  attacked my companions. Shortly thereafter, howls and abo-
  minable screams echoed from the top of the hill. If Muldar’s 
  men had happened to awake something or if the howls came 
  from them… Well, I’d rather not know…
  
  I should never have insulted Baron Oramei. The rumors 
  about him being in league with sorcerers are not the 
  least exaggerated; to this I can testify in these, the 
  final hours of my miserable life. The Baron’s troops 
  are circling my castle, and the fortifications I once 
  raised to my protection are now the walls of my 
  death chamber. They killed my alchemist first, with 
  an arrow, so now they can just sit and wait while 
  the Baron’s death magic murders us in here, one by 
  one; crushes us to shapeless skin sacks full of broken, 
  pulverized bones.
  I write this alone in my chamber, with wife and 
  children chased out into the hallway, as pointless 
  offerings to the abomination. It will not settle with 
  them. I am wearing armor that will not protect, 
  am locked behind a door that will not hinder, and on 
  the table rests my mother’s sword, which hardly can 
  save me from an enemy that cannot be seen. The 
  abomination’s embrace will soon crush my lungs and 
  break my spine, while I sit with sword in one hand 
  and pen in the other. May all abominable beings of 
  the Yonderworld haunt the Baron of Haaras for all 
  eternity.
  
  G
  rown Spites are inclined to target hibernating or cocooned 
  members of the elder folk, sinking their barbed stings into the 
  back of the victim’s neck. The insect then sheds the rear part 
  of its own body, thus leaving its offspring behind to thrive and evolve.
  T
  he infestation manifests itself in a red, swollen, purulent amniotic 
  sac far down on the host’s neck, with a forked outgrowth along 
  its throat, protruding from the skin on both sides of the larynx. 
  The larvae then grow inside this attached sac, while the host’s body is 
  poisoned and its mind and senses clouded – the latter to such an extent 
  that the creature no longer has the self-control and awareness necessary 
  to perceive the infestation of the spite.
  T
  he venom in the host’s blood provides perfect conditions for the 
  maturation of the larvae, but also seems to be the insect’s greatest 
  weakness. Tests have shown that a strong antidote can neutralize 
  the toxin, thus, effectively and immediately, eliminating the parasite. 
  The sting, the amniotic sack, and the larvae can then be removed by a 
  trained Medicus, although doing so often results in great pain and serious 
  injury.
  
  Witnesses claim that the woman was pale, dirty, 
  drooling, and making guttural sounds which were 
  sometimes reminiscent of a rooting pig, sometimes of 
  an angry goose or a rutting young bull. She was 
  jumping up and down, waving her fists and attacking 
  anyone who came near. Eventually Watchman Lerk 
  saw past the dirt and recognized her as Lea, one of 
  Goldengrasp’s assistants. He approached the woman, 
  unarmed, attempting to calm her down, which explains 
  how she managed to leap forward and bite his throat 
  open. I saw no option but to order my men to fire. She 
  died gargling with five crossbow bolts through her body.
  Incident report
  Squad Leader Pellio
  Town Watch, Thistle Hold
  
  T
  hese creatures, recognized by their gaunt physique and 
  unhealthy complexion, should be avoided whenever pos-
  sible. Alone they are merely a distraction, but in groups 
  they become a growing threat; they steal whatever they 
  can find, often destroying what they do not understand. In larger 
  groups they generate some kind of mystical power that is a serious 
  threat to the integrity of a ranger squad.
   It should also be said that troll shadows seldom have any 
  knowledge worth collecting or using, unless one happens to 
  be in search of an artifact, as these pitiful lifeforms seem able 
  to detect the scent of such items. The downside is that what 
  little help one receives comes at a greater cost than the mission 
  can afford. 
   The basic rule is simple: Keep a safe distance, or increase the 
  distance by leaving something small for them to eat or occupy 
  themselves with.
  Troll Shadow
  Better to kill them on sight, 
  or you will regret it!
  74
  75
  76
  
  Melima
  Rubble
  Children laughing?
  The ruin
  Alogai’s fall 
  Spiders!
  Vetai and 
  Gaadarei
  went this
  way
  and blight-birth
  The Troll Rock
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Symbaroum [multi]/Symbaroum - Monster Codex_GMresource.pdf