- Asterius, the Minotaur
- Scenerio Seed for Call
of Cthulhu/Delta Green
From: Morrigan (aj_hide11@hotmail.com)
Date: Saturday, December 20th , 2003
-
- Description: The Minotaur appears to be a
massive humanoid over seven feet tall. He has the head and tail
of a bull but the body of a massively muscled human male. His
sex organs are also spectacularly large. Although the Minotaur
has the head of a bull, he does not have a herbivore's teeth.
The Minotaur is a carnivore, and has teeth like a shark's, to
allow it to tear out the gobbets of flesh it eats.
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- Asterius is the product of an unholy and
unnatural union between Queen Pasiphae of Crete and a divine
white bull sent by Poseidon. There is the possibility that it
was not Poseidon who sent the bull, but another powerful "divine"
being associated with the sea (perhaps entombed beneath it, in
a vast corpse city of unnatural geometry...), and that it was
not literally this bull, but the energy or generative power of
this other being which caused Queen Pasiphae to birth the monstrous
Asterius. The Athenian architect Daedalus was involved in the
Minotaur's conception. Daedalus would have connections to Athenian
mystery religions, since science and religion were more closely
connected in his times. It is possible that he summoned or in
some other way facilitated the entrance of the generative power
of this "sea god" into the queen. Asterius delights
in violence and has an insatiable appetite for raw flesh. His
enormous strength, minimal intelligence, and vicious, depraved
mentality makes him horrifying to encounter. King Minos of Crete
was forced to confine the monstrous being in the Labyrinth because
the Minotaur had the horrifying habit of going berserk, attacking
and killing anything and everything in sight. While Asterius
is not what you would call intelligent, he does have self-awareness,
the power of speech, rudimentary problem solving powers, and
enough "smarts" to use weapons in battle. He is not
a dumb animal, but an unholy combination of man and beast.
-
- Some Keepers will not feel a supernatural/
mythical origin for the Minotaur is appropriate. The Minotaur
could easily be the product of some particularly loathsome biotechnology
experiments, along the lines of the cat men and goat men of Fortean
urban legend. For example, megalomaniacal tycoon Augustus Clarke's
biotechnology conglomerate, Clarke Biochem, does this sort of
experimentation. Clarke and his firm are interested in things
that are big and dangerous, which the Minotaur, of course, is.
The mythological Minotaur is a savage, bloodthirsty monster unworthy
of sympathy and essentially an engine of destruction bent on
killing and destroying as much as it can get away with. The Minotaur
eats humans because he is hungry, to get back at a world that
has ostracized him, and because he doesn't know any better. While
a Minotaur which is the product of biotechnology would have the
same proclivities, it could also be much more sympathetic figure,
especially if it is not a created being, but a human that has
been changed.
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- STATS
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|
|
|
- STR
|
21 |
EDU |
2 |
DEX |
13 |
POW |
7 |
CON |
25 |
HIT POINTS |
22 |
APP |
4 |
|
|
SIZ |
19 |
|
|
INT |
8 |
|
|
-
- Move: 6
-
- Damage Bonus:
+ 1D6
-
- Armor: 5 points
from a thick hide and 6 points of armor on his head
-
- Attacks:
- Punch/ strike with hand 40%, 2d6
- Bite 35% (must grapple first), 2d6
- Charge 40%, 4d6
- Gore with horns 35%, 3d6
- Two-handed weapon (axe, mace, etc.) 30%,
1d10 + 2d6
-
-
- Blood Lust: Asterius
is subject to blood lust. Normally, he is a savage, if reasonably
restrained fighter. When blood is drawn or an opponent is clearly
injured, things change. Then, a will power check, represented
by rolling POW or lesson 1d100, must be made or else he will
go BERSERK and only attack the bleeding opponent, to the exclusion
of all others. If that opponent is ever knocked to the ground,
he will start eating the still-living opponent. He gains 2 armor
points and a point of DEX, and does another 1d6 points of damage
in close combat, but is also + 15% to hit, because of his preoccupation
with a single victim.
-
- Spells: Asterius
does not have the patience to use spells.
-
- Sanity: seeing:
1/1d8, witnessing blood lust: 1d4/ 1d8 + 2
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-
- Hooks:
-
- 1. In the typical setting of CoC/ DG games,
the Minotaur makes a fine inhabitant of a modern sewer, replacing
the more "mundane" albino alligators. The Minotaur
is a brute, an engine of destruction to thin the ranks of PCs.
-
- 2. Since it is possible that the Minotaur
is the result of one of the denizens of R'Lyeh impregnating Queen
Pasiphae, the Minotaur could be their spawn, and be a much more
horrible entity than the results of a bestial union between human
and bull. This fact could add to the horror of game play.
-
- 3. Exploration of a peculiarly elaborate
set of ancient ruins could lead to a less ruined portion, with
a brutish inhabitant...
-
- 4. As mentioned above, the Minotaur could
be the product of modern biotechnological experimentation, and
tied into an adventure concerning biotechnology and/ or illegal
human or animal experimentation.
-
- 5. It is Nyarlathotep's avowed goal to spread
madness and insanity. It is possible that he may feel that this
goal is best served by turning the actual, mythological Minotaur
loose in some modern setting...like a shopping center, office
building, or the Pentagon.
-
- 6. A very straight forward, police procedural
type adventure could be played, as the PCs investigate a very
brutal, bloody-minded serial killer. The real horror comes at
the finale, when the killer is revealed to be the Minotaur...
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