The Great Communion (Enemy for 40kRPGs, mainly DW)

Fluff-wise, I'm really proud of this enemy I created for a deathwatch campaign I'm currently concluding. Got a high five from one of my players out of it who said it was one off the coolest enemies they'd ever seen in a game. Rules-wise...I've always been bad at homebrewing enemies that are interesting while still making it a fair(ish) fight. So I would love feedback to improve it for the next time that I inevitably use this enemy, or so that it works better for your own game, should you choose to steal it.

The general idea: it's a colossus of human people lashed together with rope and dark magic. Anyone ever read the short story In the Hills, the Cities by Clive Barker? Yeah...then you'll know what I'm talking about.

In my DW game, the set-up was something along these lines: there's a cult. Party investigates the cult, finds really weird, enormous wooden frame in the shape of a person, a la the wicker man, but WAY bigger. Continues to investigate cult, can't really figure out what the wooden frame is for, only that the cult will protect it for dear life and that they have some big plans for it. Some "Great Communion" is in the works. Then, when the cult leaders have decided that it's time for the great communion (actually a great sacrifice in an effort to kill the party and anyone else who is an enemy of the cult leaders), all of the cult members are rallied to come to the frame. There, they are all lashed together to with rope and sinister magics to form the shape of a human being, except miles tall and composed of humans. From a distance, it looks like a giant, writhing mass in the rough shape of a human.

Imagine the sound of tens of thousands of people screaming in pain in unison as it treds across the land. With each step, it can stride across entire city blocks. The bottoms of the feet are soon no more than bloodied stumps, but if you look closely, you can still make out fragments of human beings amid the grisly pulp of flesh and bone. The pain and intensity of the experience is so much that nearly everyone in the construct is driven insane instantly. Their droning and deafening howling is that of excruciating pain and madness.

The "head" of the abomination even has something of a face, mockeries of a nose, ears, and a mouth. It's complete with two eyesockets of 6 renegade psykers each, glowing an unearthly red as the psychic energy congeals there. They are constantly working their dark magic to keep the entire monstrosity together, desperately channeling their energy into directing the colossus.

Onto stats. I treated the thing as basically just a horde with some special rules. Felt like it made the most sense.

WS: 35
BS: 35
S: 35
T: 35
Ag: 30
Per: 30
WP: 35
Fel: 0. What did you expect?

Magnitude: Anywhere from 120 to 250. However big you need the colossus to be.

Attacks:

Crushing Step: 5d10+40 I. Extra slow, so enemies get +20 on dodges against it.

Arm Smash/Swipe: 3d10+25 I. Slow, so enemies get +10 on dodges against it.

Ungodly Warp Bolts. The psykers that serve as it's "eyes" and "brain" can channel their energies together to shoot large, crackling bolts of red energy toward the ground at their foes. Every time they use this ability, the draw upon the psychic energy of the people in the colossus. For added fluff, a small number of humans collapse off the colossus everytime it makes this attack. This does not affect its magnitude.

Ungodly Warp Bolts: 4d10 E, Pen 5. To use this attack, the colossus must make one Focus Power test, always against 60. This attack will generate psychic phenomena at a psy rating of 5 if doubles are rolled.

Talents and Traits:

Monstrosity. The being is so large that it can easily make multiple attacks a turn. It can make 2 of the above attacks a turn with no penalties whatsoever.

Enormous. Attackers get a +40 modifier to hit based on the massive size of the colossus. Does not apply to pinpointed attacks on the psykers.

Fear: 4

Psykers: The Brains of the Colossus The party may quickly conclude that the psykers are keeping this whole thing together, and choose to make attacks targeted at them. There are six psykers per eye, they each have 12 wounds with the same profile as the colossus above. They are also protected by a warp shield of 35% that never overloads. They may be targeted as you would target the colossus, given that they can see the "head" of the monster, however, they do lose the +40 bonus to hit.

That's it. Enjoy

Recommended soundtrack.

Wow, this is awesome.

Just to clarify, firing on the psykers acts as a normal attack, not a -20 called shot?

That's a good point, but I'm not certain if it makes sense. I think of called shots as a shot at a particular point on a human, or enemies no larger than like a greater demon. The "eyes" of this are the same size as humans.

If anything, I would use modifiers for distance instead. Most of the time, that will functionally be the same or comparable to called shots, but a warrior could have the opportunity to get close and shoot at the eyes at normal range - maybe an assault marine jumping on top of a building, or an aircraft hovering nearby.

I did just realize I forgot rules for it collapsing - will add those later.

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They are the same size as a human, but "miles away" according to your description of how tall this thing is. That being the case, it would be impossible to hit them at all. I think the description needs a closer look - most likely not miles high. Maybe give a height in stories as we would think of a building.

Keep in mind that at Immense size (+40), in game that is roughly the equivalent in size bonus to a Land Raider. You probably want this beast to be Titanic (+60).

I like that the option to just chunk away at the horde until it collapses (shooting the legs or whatever) is there.

I think you're right on the money about that. I can get carried away in exaggerating these things.

Probably will reduce the size of it.

Maybe I'll work in some sort of mechanic for instability - like once it drops down to 50% magnitude, it gets a little wobbly, and might collapse. The odds increase as it's magnitude decreases - kind of like breaking.

Similarly, I do agree that some rules for cutting through one of the legs could add some depth to the rules.

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Absolutely. What would be awesome is if the group decides that shooting through one of the legs is the best bet to bring it down. Let's say they do - now the GM can roll to see if any of those psykers survive. With that forcefield they are projecting, it is probably a good chance they do. Now the squad has them to deal with.

I think this enemy is really good because it gives the GM a lot of options that the players don't necessarily know about. Combat can go a lot of ways.

There's an idea. Hadn't thought of that to be honest, but then again I kind of assumed the psykers were exhausting a substantial portion of their life force on merely keeping the colossus going.

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That's a good point. If this ever does happen to be the case, they should probably have reduced health. Taking on a bunch of psykers is going to be hard enough as it is.

Love this. Very unique.

As you two are talking about it collapsing or falling perhaps consider that happens when it falls over. d12 to determine direction and then damage, something like that.

Yeah, definitely. Just use the scatter chart in the rules - should be good. Don't forget to absolutely fuckin annihilate whatever it falls on. I would say +20/30 to dodge to get out of the way and damage less than a foot stomp or hand swipe (since those are actively putting effort and strength into hurting the PCs and falling isn't).

That's about what I had in mind - will update when I have a minute.

Did I mention that when my DW party was fighting this thing, the librarian accidentally summoned a demon prince when he used his psychic ability to deal the killing blow? It was absurd.

God, that just figures hahaha.

While a fun and cool concept I actually think this would work better in Fantasy as opposed to 40k given the massive fire power that can be summoned to bring down a thing like this from long range or with aircraft attacks.

But like I said above, an original concept a freakishly cool.

Gurkhal wrote:

While a fun and cool concept I actually think this would work better in Fantasy as opposed to 40k given the massive fire power that can be summoned to bring down a thing like this from long range or with aircraft attacks.

But like I said above, an original concept a freakishly cool.

Yeah in this case the deathwatch team was isolated on a strange planet with no air or orbital support. Just gotta come up with an in game reason to prevent the players from cheesing it.

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That's always the trick, right? Plan it so the PCs cannot cheese it. Someone should get that tattooed on them.

This would be absolutely horrifying in a fantasy setting. Damn.