Lady Scylla

Yet another ancient Greek-themed creatures. Scylla is a multi-headed horror, with a central womanly body from which serpentine forms emanate.

Why the Greek “Demons”?

Planet Apocalypse is NOT a “laundry-list” of demons from all times and places. Our Hell is, in fact, set in its own demented mindset, and this mindset is firmly Medieval. The idea is that the people of the dark and middle ages had encounters with demons, and that these encounters resonated into the modern day in our legends, religion, and psyche. Now that the demons have returned, and we are seeing their awful reality, we cannot help but notice that they resemble the medieval paintings (q.v.) more than our modern concepts. But, one feature of the medieval world is that they were extremely familiar with Greek and Roman myths and literature – so our contention is that some of the demons were encountered by the ancient civilizations, and so these myths echoed through the ages as well. Hence, Scylla – once a beautiful woman in the Greco-Roman myth, but who knows her true origin?

battling Scylla

Scylla’s menace does nothing when you first enter her area – you see, it “merely” regrows two of of her six heads. She has a toughness of 5 for her body, and 4 for her heads, so the heads are comparatively easy to knock out – a single hit kills one!

However, each time you kill one of her heads, every hero takes 1 Pestilence marker. This does nothing while you’re fighting her, but when you leave, you’ll pay the price. Basically it typically takes several rounds to get rid of the Pestilence, during which the demon horde keeps advancing. You can’t do a quick First-Aid-recruit-return cycle as is possible with some demon lords.

She does a base of 6d8 damage, plus each head inflicts 1d12 damage, and after her attack, she rolls 1d6 – if the roll exceeds her current heads, she regrows one. She does give the hero a courage each time a head is killed. She has a lot of hit points – the same number as Jabootu, or 18 vs. 4 players.

Tidbit

When Keith first designed Scylla, I objected. “You have given her 7 heads, Keith. She has only one.” He was puzzled. “No look, here are her six snake heads.” I was firm. “No, her HUMAN head is the sixth. It’s always the last to go.” He saw my point and immediately agreed.